Democrats.com Exclusive: Senator Specter to Propose Clinton be Tried for Treason

Distributed by the Democrats.com News Service

1 April 2001

Republican Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the first senator to call for former President Clinton to be impeached again, will introduce a resolution in the Senate this week to charge Clinton with treason.

"Technically," asserted an aide to Specter, "Clinton can still be impeached for his misuse of presidential authority, although of course he can no longer be removed from office. We could strip him of Secret Service protection, his pension, taxpayer support for his office and his presidential library and everything down to and including his White House lapel pin."

"But a treason conviction would open up a whole new array of punishments," said the aide. "Frankly, we're kicking ourselves for not thinking of this in '98."

Specter has reportedly been searching for weeks for a way of returning former President Clinton to the news by charging him with abusing the president's power to issue pardons.

Specter's spokesman said that Republicans have come to realize that merely impeaching the former president again would not be sufficient to keep the 'Clinton has Sinned' narrative before the public indefinitely.

"Our polls show that the right-wing zealots who finance the Republican Party require an ever-escalating series of anti-Clinton thrills," said the aide. "It's a little like an addiction. The old thrills just don't deliver the same old rush. A trial in the Senate that convicts Clinton of treason would enable us to empanel a firing squad to execute the former president."

Aides to Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., and Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, were quick to add their support for charges of treason against the former president.

"We're going to get the guy," said a top Lott aide, "we don't much care how we do it."

Delay's staff has confirmed that he is already asking Republican members of Congress to serve as honorary executioners, and that he would introduce an appropriations bill to build scaffolding on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol for the purpose of hanging the former president. The gallows would become a permanent public exhibit and will be named for former President Ronald Reagan.

Republican sources admitted that they were unlikely to move expeditiously to actually execute Clinton after his presumed conviction by the Senate. According to one informed source, "As the most popular opposition politician in the country, Clinton continues to serve a vital function as the far right's most important bogeyman. He is worth more to us alive than dead. Frankly, we'd be out tens of millions of dollars if he were to disappear suddenly."

However, the Republican Party has begun to explore the possibility of turning that around. Under a secret proposal leaked to Democrats.com, Republicans who donate up to $100 will receive a commemorative noose tie clasp. Donors who give up to $10,000 will be given a certificate of membership in the Neither Cruel Nor Unusual Club. Those who give up to $100,000 will be receive a special videotape of the event and become Hangman's Helpers, which entitles them to sit in bleachers nearest the gallows. Those who give up to $1 million will become members of the Executioner's Club, with reserved seats in climate-controlled luxury boxes featuring catered meals and closed-circuit, high-definition televisions for coverage and replays.

If the solicitation is less than successful, the source said, "we will return to the traditional methods of character assassination to get Clinton's approval ratings down from their alarmly high current levels," he admitted. "This could take most of the next four years," he added, "but it will draw attention away from President Bush, the real results of the presidential election in Florida, the recession, the tax cuts for the wealthy and a host of other damaging topics that have begun to creep back into the news."

Specter was clearly stung by charges that his earlier call for impeaching the former president again was an irrelevant waste of time and money.

"The treason charges are new and can reunify the anti-Clinton forces," Specter's aide asserted.

He added that the previous attempt at impeaching Clinton had been such a boon for right wing fundraising it would "be irresponsible not to try again just because Clinton is no longer president."

Sources close to Specter said that if the conviction of the former president on treason charges succeeds, he will be exploring cases against other opposition politicians who threaten continued Republican control of all three branches of government.

"It really isn't personal," said the source. "According to our polls, the public execution of Democratic politicians would be wildly popular among gun owners, religious extremists and other core Republican constituencies. After our use of the Supreme Court for overtly political purposes this is just the next logical step in consolidating single party control of the government."

Specter's aide said they continue to have some doubts about the constitutionality of taking the former president's lapel pin. "But then we figured, what the hell," said the aide.

Lott's wife reportedly championed a proposal to turn Clinton into a pillar of salt but that idea was "smote as being too Biblical," according to the aide.

There were also technological problems with that approach. "No one could say just how to turn someone into a pillar of salt," the aide reported, "although we did find several ambitious contractors anxious for lucrative contracts from the Pentagon to work on Star Wars who pledged to provide the human-to-salt technology," he reported.

Democratic leaders appeared confused by the Republican proposal for ritual human sacrifice. In an effort at bi-partisanship, the Democratic leaders proposed that the former president be mutilated or lobotomized instead.

"The endgame here will probably be a bi-partisan agreement to castrate the former president," according to a high ranking Democrat on Capitol Hill. "We may be able to prevent the castration from being televised live on Fox, but Fox has already paid big bucks for the TV rights, and the Republicans have the votes."

"Most of us think the whole thing is sick," he continued, "so we are urgently hoping for some kind of spontaneous public outcry so we can object to it."

The state-sponsored public execution of a former president, which would be the first in U.S. history, clearly causes problems for the U.S. Secret Service, which is responsible for protecting former presidents. However, an aide to Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, whose department controls the Secret Service, responded: "Hey, whether we cheated or not to get it, the monopoly on the legitimate use of violence is ours now, so get over it."

In preparation for the fundraising component of the officially sanctioned assasination of the former president, the Republican National Committee has set up a Web site at http://wearereallygonnagethimthistimeboywearenotkiddingheycomebackhere.com which contains more details.

"We are outraged at the lack of outrage," said Democrats.com co-founder David Lytel. "What exactly are Democrats waiting for, an invitation to begin fighting back?" he said.

-- Anonymous, April 02, 2001

Answers

APRIL FOOLS DAY, DIMWITS

SPECTER WOULD BE ABOUT THE LAST ONE TO TRY SUCH A PLOY.

-- Anonymous, April 02, 2001

Oh, hell, CPR. I really had my hopes up.

-- Anonymous, April 02, 2001

What dimwits CEEP? You got an audience that got sucked that we don't know about? Aw, the arrogance. We little plebs need the big CEEP to splain the simple shit.

-- Anonymous, April 03, 2001

"The last one" to try such a thing? Think again, Oh Wise One. HE was the one who stated Clinton could STILL be impeached.

You were saying something about "dimwits"?

-- Anonymous, April 03, 2001